Friday, March 16, 2012

Reads To Wake You Up!

The administration this afternoon released its “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on preventive services policy.” Translation: President Barack Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are moving forward with their controversial contraception mandate, which requires even religiously affiliated employers to provide their employees with insurance that covers contraception — even if those employers object to contraception on religious grounds.

But don’t worry: Secretary Sebelius says your religious liberty is assured, so it is assured.

“The President’s policy respects religious liberty and makes free preventive services available to women,” she said. ”Today’s announcement is the next step toward fulfilling that commitment.” MORE

Just how committed is the federal government to Planned Parenthood? Enough to put more than 100,000 low-income Texas women at risk.

The Lone Star State has completely defunded Planned Parenthood and other providers of elective abortions. Congress, meanwhile is looking into allegations that Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide have committed Medicaid fraud. Late last week, the federal Department of Health and Human Services announced it will withhold Medicaid dollars from Texas unless it allows Planned Parenthood to have some of the money.

That’s the money the Texas Women’s Health Program relies on to provide low-income women with breast cancer screenings and other preventive services.

“Our Legislature decided in 2011 that we were not going to fund abortions or abortion affiliates of Planned Parenthood, and this administration basically doesn’t care,” Gov. Rick Perry said, adding that the administration is violating the 10th Amendment.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott may take it to court.
“Greg has clearly said that if they continue to go after the State of Texas that he will sue to defend our constitutional right to administer this program,” Perry said. MORE

Should you vote for Barack Obama or the Republican candidate in 2012? Here's a little quiz to help you decide!

1) The latest report from the CBO shows that the one decade cost estimate for Obamacare has almost doubled from 900 billion to 1.76 trillion dollars, it will add 700 billion dollars to the deficit over its first 10 years, 3-5 million people will lose their health care, and 30 million people still won't have health coverage -- and history has shown that CBO projections of this sort almost always turn out to be optimistic. So, do you want the American health care system to be decimated by Barack Obama?

2) Do you want to see gas prices rise as fast as possible while Barack Obama slow walks offshore drilling, blocks the Keystone Pipeline, and opposes ANWR?

Earlier this week, the newly elected Egyptian Parliament adopted a resolution calling for a belligerent policy toward Israel that would put a formal end to three decades of peaceful relations.

Among other things, the resolution urged the deportation of Israel's ambassador to Cairo, a halt to the export of Egyptian natural gas to Israel, a re-examination of the Camp David peace accords, adoption of ''all forms of resistance'' against the Jewish state and mobilization of the Arab League in opposition to the "Judaization of Jerusalem."

For good measure, the Parliament also gave a green light to direct assistance to the Palestinians in the context that the "Zionist regime is the primary enemy of Egypt."

This chilling turnabout of Egyptian foreign policy was engineered by a coalition of Islamist parties -- the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists -- plus leftist parties.

The Zionist Organization of America immediately sent word to a U.S. congressional delegation visiting Cairo, urging the lawmakers to take up this issue with Egyptian authorities and to warn them that formalization of the resolution as government policy would mean an immediate cutoff of U.S. aid.

It turns out, however, that ZOA President Morton Klein, in his appeal to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who's heading the visiting American delegation, may just be whistling in the dark.

Because no sooner had the new Egyptian Parliament formulated its hostile stance toward Israel than the State Department nevertheless proceeded with plans to reopen the multi-billion-dollar U.S. aid pipeline to Egypt -- with Pelosi's full approbation. MORE

A trial balloon that failed to rise above the president's rhetorical gutter.

On Thursday, Reuters reported that Britain and the U.S. have reached an agreement to release oil from the nations' oil reserves. The report states that the idea originated with the Obama administration and that "Britain would respond positively" to a formal request.

The report was immediately denied by a White House spokesman and questioned by some oil analysts.

Such a move would be a reprise of a similar failed effort less than a year ago. However, given pressure from Democrats and bad polling for President Obama on fuel prices, the initial report is easier to believe than the White House's denial. Indeed, the denial did not say that this was not a topic for discussion between Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron, but simply that there was no actual agreement.

The burst of activity, including how quickly the administration had a response ready, had the distinct air of a "trial balloon," something that panicky administrations resort to when out of ideas. MORE